Lost And…Still Lost

byEmilyonDecember 12, 2017

You can chase a dream that seems so out of reach,

And you know it may not ever come your way.

Dream it anyway.

I love this song by Martina McBride. And I get the sentiment behind this verse, I really do. But the problem with chasing a dream is that even if you attain it, it won’t turn out to be the idyllic thing you thought it would be.

And that hurts. Sometimes, it hurts a lot.

In this recent post about three random things going on in my life, I talk about how excited B was to get his first micro-drone. After getting the hang of the remote and feeling like he had the drone under control, he started playing with it outside.

He had an immense amount of fun with it…for three days. Then, the other day, it was a bit windy and he was trying to see how high he could get it to fly. J cautioned him to bring it down. B didn’t.

You can guess the end of the story.

A few minutes later, he ran into the house near tears. “I was flying the drone and the wind took it and I didn’t see where it went!”

For those readers who don’t know, I should tell you that we live in the middle of a forested mountain. With lots of pines and cedars holding out lots of needle-covered branches just waiting to capture micro-drones.

J and I went out to help B look for it. Along the way, B yelled, “I hate myself!” while beating himself on the leg and head.

Anyway, at one point he started crying, and came to me for a hug. You know when an eleven-year-old boy does that, he’s upset.

We kept looking in the places that seemed reasonable to look given his estimation of how far it had gone. I looked even further. Back inside the house, B lashed out at me, telling me he wanted his money back. He had paid for the toy himself, making the loss even more painful.

He also demanded (no asking politely when he’s angry) several times that we replace it. He didn’t have a lot of money saved up, and the $21 this toy cost took a chunk out of his savings.

A little while later, J and I canvassed the woods, weeds, and brush pile further. All to no avail.

I couldn’t help the maternal told-you-so that rose up inside me, so I reminded B that I had advised against asking for or buying flying remote control devices because of all the trees. When he finally calmed down, he conceded that he should have asked for a ground RC vehicle for his birthday rather than the big drone, and wished he hadn’t bought the micro-drone.

The thing about chasing dreams is that sometimes they can bring huge disappointments. But if we don’t go after them, how will we grow into our potential? Learn to tweak our desires?

Learning to deal with disappointment is a part of life. Finding disappointment at the end of a dream is a particularly hard pill to swallow, but if we recognize that it doesn’t mean the end of the road, but a sign pointing us in a better direction for us, then it’s all good.